Manoeuvring on the Framework text

The next two weeks, in the run-up to the WTO’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing, will prob­a­bly see a lot of pub­lic the­atre and pri­vate arm-twist­ing over the pro­posed ‘frame­work’ for con­clud­ing the negotiations—particularly the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tion of it. But I’m stick­ing to “my view”:http://www.petergallagher.com.au/textpattern/index.php?event=article&step=edit&ID=290 that the rather mod­est ideas in the “cur­rent text”:http://www.petergallagher.com.au/textpattern/index.php?event=article&step=edit&ID=286 on agri­cul­ture will sur­vive large­ly intact. In typ­i­cal­ly haughty style, Pres­i­dent Chirac dis­missed the entire frame­work (as usu­al, for “Europe’s inter­ests” please read “France’s inter­ests”): bq. “This pro­pos­al is pro­found­ly unbal­anced to the detri­ment of the inter­ests of the Euro­pean Union,” Chirac said.(“UPI”:http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040722–010809-6982r) But his Trade Min­is­ter, François Loos, trans­lat­ed this into a nego­tiable objec­tion bq. “We are ask­ing for full par­al­lelism to be restored,” wrote French Trade Min­is­ter Fran­cois Loos in the news­pa­per Le Figaro Thurs­day. “If the Amer­i­cans agree to get rid of their cred­its it would be a promis­ing start.” (“UPI”:http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040722–010809-6982r) Brazil, on behalf of the G-20, is also manoeu­vring on the text. In an appar­ent ref­er­ence to the pro­pos­al that indus­tri­al­ized coun­tries should have the ‘flex­i­bilty’ to con­tin­ue to pro­tect their most high­ly pro­tect­ed (‘sensitive&#8217)markets the Brazil­ians are argu­ing that bq. ” …there is a clear imbal­ance between cer­tain major points that are guar­an­teed at the out­set for devel­oped coun­tries and oth­er points of fun­da­men­tal impor­tance for devel­op­ing coun­tries.” (“AFP”:http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1518&ncid=1518&e=8&u=/afp/20040722/bs_afp/wto_trade_talks_040722175524) The text pro­posed by the Chair­man of the nego­ti­at­ing group—NZ Ambas­sador Tim Grosser—does not attempt to ful­ly define, at this stage, the ‘flex­i­bilty’ to be avail­able to devel­op­ing coun­tries. On the whole, these state­ments should prob­a­bly be read as posi­tion­ing for lat­er nego­ti­a­tion rather than rejec­tion of the frame­work. But they amount to an attack, from two flanks, on the cur­rent draft frame­work which is already rather shaky and vague on key points, par­tic­u­lar­ly on mar­ket access. Whether the frame­work can sur­vive these assaults may now depend on where the US comes out on the cur­rent text. So far it has made no pub­lic state­ment.

Peter Gallagher

Peter Gallagher is student of piano and photography. He was formerly a senior trade official of the Australian government. For some years after leaving government, he consulted to international organizations, governments and business groups on trade and public policy.

He teaches graduate classes at the University of Adelaide on trade research methods and the role of firms in trade and growth and tweets trade (and other) stuff from @pwgallagher